~ show-speak-kindness

Keith Urban

Recently I was blessed to watch Keith Urban perform live at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre. How I came to be at the show with my mother is a wonderful story.

My local radio station had been running a competition for tickets to a Keith Urban backstage experience. One night while sitting on the couch with my son, I went online and entered the competition. To enter you had to write in 50 words or less why this summer had been a long hot one for yourself. Long hot summer is a reference to Keith number 1 hit song off his latest album.

My entry was in relation to April being Autism Awareness month and my favorite son and I had been doing the rounds at Specialist Doctors, Government Department, Special Education etc This summer we had learnt a whole new level of patience.

The very next day we got the phone call to say we would be on the radio. My favorite son was able to speak on the radio and he was heard all over our wonderful state. My phone rang hot all day with family and friends saying they had heard our favourite boy and congratulating us on winning tickets to the Keith Urban Back Stage Experience and they wanted to know what question we would ask if given the chance?

After being on the radio I had dropped off the children so they could spend the weekend with their Dad. I asked the their Dad if our son could attend Keith’s concert with me which was for the next evening (Saturday) and he said “no”.

My son said “Don’t worry Mum, give my ticket to Nanna she loves country music too”.

I am so proud of my son’s big heart and that is how Mum and I got to meet Keith Urban

Here we are all standing together, trying to stop smiling like silly school girls.

Keith asked us individually for our names and gave each of us a hug, I manage to plant a kiss on his cheek, so I could brag about it to my sister.

This is going to sound corny but I’m going to say it anyway, the room was filled with love and you could cut it with a knife. The little girl with the big orange heart has special needs and she is Keith biggest fan, she too had received a free backstage pass, through Keith’s fan club. She had seen his performance the night before and today had brought flowers but security would not allow her to present them. When it was her turn to introduce herself and get a hug, she informed Keith in a loud voice that there was a large bunch of red roses with a card waiting for him and he assured her that he would definitely get them and looked forward to reading her card.

As a mother of a child with special needs and feeling his absence, especially since he was the reason I was standing there made me love her out spokeness and the genuine warmth/love she received from everyone including Keith could be measured and felt.

Eventually Keith had met and hugged everyone and sang a song for us all, he opened up the room for questions. Everyone had questions that related to either and upcoming show or relevance of a song and our orange hearted girl asked ‘how does it feel to be loved by the whole world?”.

Keith’s answers were light hearted and funny. I put my head up and asked “what has helped you through tough times?”

Immediately I regretted asking my question because his stopped smiling and started wringing his hands. My reason for asking that question was because inside of the auditorium was my best friend and she was with a large group of people who are still volunteering to help families affected by the January floods, they has also received free tickets.

There were people in his audience that are still under immense pressure financially and emotionally by January’s devastation. My question had killed the light hearted mood we all had been in.

His answer can be summed up in one word “music”. It was always the music that saw him through tough times.

Upon reflection I am glad I asked a tough question and appreciated Keith’s honesty, I am glad he didn’t offer a hallmark moment (staged one liner) or made light of it.

Lady Antebellum was the warm up act and all I can say it WOW! If this was the support band I was wondering how good was Keith going to be. Lady A gave a first class performance with a huge band. I would love to see them again.

Mum and I waiting to see if Keith perform with his band.

One of my best friends and proud member of the Heart Army Volunteers who is working tirelessly for January’s flood affected families.

Big screen shot

Lucky for us we were not in the nose bleed section

Keith Urban is a natural performer and really connected with the crowd bla bla bla. That is what everyone writes and I can tell you it is all true. What I want to convey is two and half hours flew by and it felt like 10 minutes. This guy can really play the guitar and make it sing. He is energetic, poetic, tender soft and hard core rocker all wrapped up in sexy.

Oh and he can sing!

We loved our up and close Keith Urban experience especially when he wore his uniform shirt from his High School, sang Aussie rock songs and wore his Queensland Rugby League jersey. It is amazing to think that his star has risen from our backyard to the international stage. Could not be any prouder of Keith and we will definately be buying our tickets next time.

Even better still he has this wonderful interactive website where he posts his own bootlegged video’s from his concerts, interviews and sound checks go check it out http://www.keithurban.net/ + media + KU tube.